Sam Dyson out as closer is easy decision, but Rangers face much harder ones after that

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Texas Rangers closing pitcher Sam Dyson crouches on the mound after he gave up a walk-off RBI single to Seattle Mariners' Nelson Cruz in the ninth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, April 16, 2017, in Seattle. The Mariners won, 8-7. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

It's what comes next for the Rangers' bullpen that will require the longer, harder conversation.

The Rangers simply can't put another lead in his hands right now. It doesn't matter that he got ground balls, his specialty, in the ninth inning of an 8-7 walkoff loss to Seattle.

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He looked the part of the tortured closer, accidentally redirecting one hit with his bare hand, trying to make a play he never had on a bunt and walking in the tying run. And when the game finally ended on Nelson Cruz's grounder up the middle, which Elvis Andrus smothered but couldn't get out of his glove, it almost seemed to be a relief.

The torture of Dyson is over. All that is left is to figure out what to do next. The easy part is unplugging Dyson. Much harder: figuring out solutions.

"We will have those discussions," manager Jeff Banister said of the bullpen. "I'm not going to talk about my confidence in Sam right now. It's obvious that we need for Sam to be good; he's an integral part of that bullpen. We need him to rebound and do what he can out of the bullpen."

As far as the game went, the bullpen wasn't the only issue. Cole Hamels barely kept shreds of a one-time, five-run lead together through five innings. The offense twice left the bases loaded in the latter stages of the game. But the bullpen has been the season's single biggest issue. The bullpen is 1-5 with one save in six chances, a 6.27 ERA and seven home runs in 37 innings.

It adds up to this: The Rangers have blown three leads of at least four runs this season, and they have yet to win a game in which they have scored fewer than eight runs.

Dyson took much of the blame for the bullpen's failure. As closer, most of that falls to him anyway.

"I'm pissed off and mad right now," Dyson said. "Our batters are going there and giving us a chance to win, and I've let them down; I've let myself down, too.

"I'm confident in my stuff," he added. "I feel like I executed my stuff. I got the ball on the ground. I just didn't get the job done."

Whatever the Rangers decide, it's not as simple as just pulling Dyson out of the closer's role. If, as expected, Matt Bush becomes the closer, somebody must move into his role as the setup man. Bush looked fantastic in striking out the side in the eighth with nothing but 11 fastballs at 97 and 98 mph Sunday.

"I felt great," Bush said. "I had better mechanics, too. I felt like I had a dominating fastball, and when I have that, I don't really need much more than that."

That was the good news. But before the Rangers unwrap a new closer they must also consider this: Bush was also pitching for the first time in a week and for the first time since receiving a cortisone injection in his right shoulder because of soreness in the AC joint. The Rangers were not going to pitch him a second inning the first time back on the mound. He will have to be handled carefully.

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To promote him now would potentially put Rangers management at risk of being seen as putting performance over principle inside the clubhouse.

There are other issues in the bullpen. Tony Barnette, who the Rangers are counting on to be a linchpin between the rotation and the key back-end pieces, surrendered a run in the sixth, then allowed a game-tying homer to start the seventh.

Jeremy Jeffress, who bailed the Rangers out of the seventh, pitched for the eighth time in the first 12 games. They can't keep him on his current elbow-grinding 108-game pace. They also have a long reliever in Mike Hauschild who has allowed runs each time he's been called on and must be carried on the roster all season in order to keep him in the system. Their second left-handed reliever, Dario Alvarez, hasn't been very effective against lefties on those occasions he's been asked to retire a specific batter.